News, events and insights

Curved House Kids launch a free guide to engaging girls in STEM to mark the 26th anniversary of British astronaut Helen Sharman’s historic space mission

Twenty-six years ago, on 18 May 1991, astronaut Helen Sharman became the first Brit in space, and the first woman to visit the Mir space station. Dr Sharman beat 13,000 hopefuls to the post after responding to a radio advertisement requesting “Astronaut Applications. No experience necessary”. Sharman’s mission was, and still is, a remarkable moment for both British history and for women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). It is also a timely reminder of the urgent need to promote and encourage girls into STEM careers. Two and a half decades on and achievements like Dr Sharman’s are still all too rare.

In the UK, women make up just 21% of the entire STEM workforce (WISE Campaign, 2016, www.wisecampaign.org.uk). Meanwhile, there is a serious skills crisis across every part of the STEM sector with an estimated shortfall of 69,000 recruits every year. This is costing billions and putting the UK at a significant disadvantage, especially post-Brexit. However, we have a solution right in front of us: the tens of thousands of female students each year who are choosing not to pursue STEM careers. These girls are more than capable of contributing to the STEM sector – and the UK economy – but they are not choosing STEM careers. An education pipeline published by the WISE Campaign last year highlights the diminishing rates: 50% of girls do GCSE science, 34% continue into A-Level and just 7% go into higher education. That is in stark contrast to the 24% of boys at the same education level.

Inspired by Space: Engaging Girls in STEM, published by Curved House Kids on the anniversary of Sharman’s launch, is a guide for teachers and educators that aims to not only engage primary-aged girls but also to embed a genuine and lasting interest in science. It provides easy-to-implement ideas for both the classroom and home learning. Written and compiled by primary educator and science specialist Claire Loizos with Curved House Kids publisher Kristen Harrison, it details five strategies to help girls succeed in STEM learning, including harnessing skills like communication, collaboration and creativity. Each strategy is accompanied by a number of adaptable activities for teachers to use in the classroom and beyond.

The guide draws heavily on the learning and feedback from the Principia Space Diary, a primary science programme that now has over 90,000 British students registered to complete their own diary as they follow ESA astronaut Tim Peake’s Principia mission. Developed by Curved House Kids with author and science communicator Lucy Hawking, the Space Diary highlights the roles of many influential women in the space and science sectors. These include Dr Helen Sharman, astronomer Sheila Kanani and Tim Peake’s Mission Director Berti Meisinger, who are featured in the guide.

Our goal is to help primary-aged girls to see themselves in STEM careers – whether it’s as astronauts, scientists, mathematicians, coders or any other role. We also aim to ensure girls in STEM are visible and celebrated by peers, family and the wider community. Publisher Kristen Harrison stresses that this guide is not just for girls and promotes the use of these ideas with all students.

‘True equality is not just about giving girls opportunities,’ Harrison says. ‘It’s about developing empathy in all students to ensure we are all open to female voices and appreciate the benefits of diversity.’

We hope this guide will help teachers to implement new ideas without adding hours of workloads. Teacher Claire Loizos says:

‘I have found that open tasks that require children to “learn on their feet” and choose their own methods of application have worked wonders at encouraging girls to take ownership of their own learning, with huge increases in enjoyment and progress. The ideas and activities in this guide bear this in mind, providing minimal teacher input and maximum pupil effort, encouraging independence whilst allowing girls to be creative.’

About Claire Loizos (@primary_sci)
Claire Loizos trained as a Secondary Science teacher, and has taught in a range of secondary schools, including South-London (Deptford) and North-London (Wood Green). Having specialised in Primary-Secondary transfer she found herself working closely with feeder schools and primary school science teachers. As a consequence she decided to take a leap down to primary, becoming Head of Science at a Hertfordshire Prep. She is now leading science in a large state primary school on the Isle of Wight. Claire is a mum and a full-time teacher but she spends her free time running STEM clubs and promoting primary science and STEM learning opportunities, especially amongst young girls.

About Kristen Harrison/Curved House Kids (@curvedhousekids)
Kristen Harrison is a former Penguin editor who founded the children’s education publisher Curved House Kids in 2011. She has a Masters in Communications and her primary interest is looking at how visual learning methodologies can help to raise literacy levels. She sits on the board of the International Visual Literacy Association and is the co-founder and curator of Visual Verse, an online anthology of art and words that invites writers to respond to a visual prompt. The anthology has featured new work by Ali Smith, Bernadine Evaristo, Andrew Motion, Adam Foulds, Nikesh Shukla and hundreds of other established and emerging writers.

Ed Sheeran is talented, super successful and down-to-earth. His performances are raw and powerful and he seems to ooze boundless natural talent. Well, he is boundlessly talented, but Ed Sheeran has worked seriously hard to be as good as he is. Throughout his childhood and his career, he has adopted some really positive mindsets that have helped him through both good and bad times and we think this is inpsiring for children and young people to hear. In a Desert Island Discs interview with BBC’s Kirsty Young, Ed reflects on an awkward childhood and shares the moments that made him.

Value individuality. Ed says he wasn’t exactly a contender for coolness as a kid. He had a stammer, a birthmark and “huge, blue NHS specs”. Oh, and his mum dressed him in colourful home-knitted jumpers. All that could be really embarrassing, right? Ed saw standing out as a good thing: “I love being different, I love doing stuff that’s a little bit off kilter”. Feeling different as a child is one of the hardest things and as teachers and parents it’s often difficult to convince a child that hey are OK just as they are. What Ed reminds us of is that we should not only make sure kids feel OK, but give them the tools to really celebrate what makes them different.

Turn the negatives into positives. There are several moments in Ed’s interview when he turns a positive into a negative. He talks about not fitting in, but then turns that into a really positive thing by finding ways to stand out. He talks about not being into sport and not being able to watch TV at home, but then talks about how learning to play the guitar gave him an identity and something to focus on. Sometimes the things that make us “different” or “weird” are the things that make us truly awesome.

Work hard. When people talk about Ed Sheeran they often talk about his raw, natural talent. Few know how hard he has worked to get where he is today. He recorded his first album on a 4-track in his bedroom at the age of 13 and says it was “dreadful”. He was singing out of key but he still keep persisting. He talks about the 10,000 hour rule – that if you spend 10,000 hours doing something you’ll get good at it. This tenacity is so important, and in fact that this should probably be at the top of our list of 5 lessons.

Be flexible. When Ed was 16 he left home and went to London to become a musician. Many parents would not support this, being so young and not pursuing A-Levels or higher education, but Ed acknowledges that there was no harm in just giving it a try. He refers again to the 10,000 rule and how even if he went and gigged for four years non-stop and it didn’t work out he’d still only be 20 and there would be plenty of time to change direction. We are so often led to believe that life is a linear path, one continuous journey, but actually life is lots of paths intersecting and splitting off at all times. Don’t be afraid to try, fail, and try something else. High five to Ed’s parents for supporting his brave 16-year old pursuits!

Set goals and value your achievements. Ed had a dream to sell 100,000 albums and play at Shepherd’s Bush. Just before he released his first album he did a gig that got slated in the press. He was pretty down, but the following week his album launched and sold 102,000 copies. Boom! Rather than wallow in those miserable reviews, he acknowledged that he had reached a massive milestone for himself and had achieved what he set out to achieve.

So, dreams do come true. But you have to be willing to dream them first!

Earth Day has arrived! To help you celebrate, we’ve put together a list of our favourite Earth-related experiments and activities for your Earth Heroes. We can’t wait to see how you celebrate Earth Day. Don’t forget to use #EarthDay and #EarthHero on Facebook and Twitter, so we can see what you get up to!

KNOW YOUR PLANTS

You don’t have to travel far to become an Earth Hero. Just take a wander through your backyard or nearby park to get started. Here are few activities involving plants, flowers and leaves found around your neighbourhood. The can encourage investigation, exploration, identification and analysis which can easily be adapted for different age levels. Discuss colours and shapes with younger children, and with older children utilise the internet and look up the names of plants you find and discover why they might be growing in your area. Which animals benefit from them?

GARDENING AT HOME

Getting children involved in gardening is a hands-on way to teach them about the lifecycle of plants. You don’t need a back yard to do this! There are loads of ways you can grow a garden inside using recyclables from your rubbish bin. Read this useful resource on how to garden indoors, if you get stuck!

ANIMAL WATCH

Got an aspiring David Attenborough in your household? Birds, butterflies and worms are three of the most common animals you’ll see looking out your windows. Why not make a bird or butterfly feeder and create a log of who comes to visit? Chart which birds or butterflies are the most frequent visitors. Note: If you can’t find any pinecones, use an apple. It’s biodegradable and good for birds!

RECYCLING

Earth Day is a good time to bring up important issues surrounding waste. Start a recycling box at home, sort through your wardrobes and toy boxes and donate old or unused items to charity. Here is some great information on how you can explain the importance of recycling and upcycling to kids.

Valeria De La Vega talks about her experiences of growing up with Dyslexia in Colombia and how she overcame the challenges of this reading disorder.

In the first grade I had an activity where we had to go around tables and read a paragraph out of a book. Once you finished it you could move on to the next one. I remember just staring at these pages and their illustrations and not being able to understand the words while my classmates passed by me on to the next table. So instead of trying I pretended to know what was going on and imitated what my friends did. This sort of thing happened a lot in primary school. I didn’t participate much, I got nervous every time I had to read out loud and I loved going to the nurse’s office just because it would get me out of class.

The Challenge of Reading Aloud

This is how my dyslexic brain works now when I have to read out loud, or better yet my thought process. Okay I can do this, I’ll just read it before so I don’t make a fool of myself. Starting now, alright these words I can read, I know them and this is going pretty smoothly, oh long word now, it’s okay I know it… continuing ugh made a little mistake with that one, back on track… oh no this next word I don’t know it I’ll read it a bit slowly but not too slow so people don’t notice it, oops said the wrong word, this time I said it right. Okay Vale keep up, I just stumbled on some other words and made up a word again but it’s okay it’s going alright and now it’s over, success.

It’s not like I’m stumbling across every word I read, or that it takes me twice the amount of time to read out loud. Sometimes when I don’t recognise a word or if it’s too long I have to stop and sound out the letters. This leads to a slower reading time and in some cases mistakes because my brain doesn’t sound them out properly or it decides that it’s another word. This happens more frequently to me than to normal readers. Reading silently is something that I prefer, nobody is looking at me, I can read at my own pace and I make fewer mistakes because I feel no pressure. Unless it’s like when I was in school and I had to read in pairs. The other person would want to turn the page and I wasn’t at the end yet so I felt hurried, had to run through the sentences and not enjoy it at all.

When I was younger I had trouble recognising letters, I would confuse b-d a-q-p c-o l-i r-t, and I would stumble more when reading. That lead me to ask more questions, a thing that is normal among children I think, but in my case curiosity was also accompanied by a break. Recognising letters wasn’t my only problem, once I solved that I still had other reading difficulties.

For me reading was a tedious task and it took me longer to learn how to do it than it did to my classmates. When having to read out loud in the classroom I would see which was the passage that I had to read before so I would do it just like my classmates did. This way I wouldn’t stumble or have the others read the word correctly on top of me if I took too long.

The Invisible Disability

I had a lot of help growing up, and I didn’t realise that I had a problem. I had to go to special-ed classes in school, do extra homework, went to after school tutorials and I even had reading classes during vacations. However, I think that there is an age where you don’t question why you have to do some things and you just do them because it’s part of a routine. Or you don’t really notice that you are struggling with some things because you just find it normal until it fades away. So when I had to do all of this I found it normal, unless I was lazy or I saw that my siblings were playing while I had to work, and that’s when it started to bother me. On the other hand, my mom always said I was special, but I thought she meant it as a quality I had because of my personality, while my sisters who were a bit older did know that I struggled. One of them loved to help me out, showed me different ways to succeed with creative ideas for school, and something about the way she explained things to me made it all more simple.

There were various exercises that I had to do along the years that I had help. Sometimes my teacher and I read a text in unison, in other cases I would have to read a paragraph out loud and start again every time I made a mistake (an exercise that could be very frustrating). There were times when I did exercises with audio, for example writing down the lyrics of a song, listening to an audio and writing down the main idea or learning how to take notes from dictations or things I heard. There were other ones that had to do with identifying differences between letters and having to write them properly, as well as identifying different shapes and cataloguing them with colour. Images played an important role. With them I did exercises like cross matching vocabulary to pictures or describing what was happening in sequences that I saw. Since it wasn’t only about learning to read it was about comprehension as well I learned how to identify the main idea in a paragraph and its supporting ones as well.

This was a process that took various years until I got a hang of it. Up until the third grade going to the nurse was a hobby for me to skip classes. Everyday I would say to my teachers that my stomach or my head hurt, of course they knew that it wasn’t true but off to the nurse I went. There she would make me have some tea and because of that I’ve developed a dislike for it now. In classes I would get easily distracted and just go to imaginary worlds. I loved story time when my teachers read out loud to us. So I wanted to be a writer, but when someone told me that in order to be a writer I had to read a book per week I thought that I couldn’t do it and I didn’t want to anymore. But little by little I started getting into books, stories became more captivating and all the extra work I had done was starting to pay off. It wasn’t hard to read anymore.

Overcoming My Dyslexia

Some people think that dyslexic people are dumb and I can assure you we are not. Albert Einstein, Andy Warhol, John Lennon, Walt Disney and F. Scott Fitzgerald were all dyslexic and they were brilliant. Now I’m not saying that I’m anything like them, only that dyslexia doesn’t mean not being intelligent. I had a switch go on in my head when I finished primary school. I decided that I wanted to be one of the best and so I paid attention, I read, I studied hard and even graduated second best in my class. I think few people from my school know that I was dyslexic because it’s not something that I talk too much about or that showed after primary.

In university I started studying Communications and I wanted to go into publishing. However, I was scared because spelling in Spanish wasn’t something that I had mastered. Even though it’s my first language I was always better at English because I preferred reading in this language and it doesn’t have accents like Spanish does. I took a copyediting class and had a talk with my professor and told her about my fears and her words encouraged me. She told me that she is also dyslexic and she is a great copy editor, so I said to myself well if she can do it so can I, and I did.

How to Help Someone with Dyslexia

Dyslexia can subtly affect you and lower your self esteem, it can make you shy and not want to shine and it can make you feel slow. Once you get a hang of it there is nothing you can’t do, your brain just works differently. I believe that there is nothing bad with that. It is something that I will always have and struggle a bit with but from my experience it won’t impair you to do what you want. I can read out loud but it’s something that if I can avoid it I will, on the other hand I love speaking in public, doing speeches and presentations. So it’s not a thing about stage fright, it’s about feeling confident in what I can do in front of others.

If you know anybody with dyslexia it’s important to encourage them and not make them feel dumb. Since I can only talk about my experience and I got help when I was young I believe that the earlier you start getting help the better, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying if you are older. Visual learning is another way to get information through and I’ve found that it is very effective, words matter but so do images. A combination of both of these is a great approach towards learning for anybody, especially for dyslexic people who take longer to decode words, and you can get tired of working with letters again and again. Also, remember that every case is different and what worked for me could work differently for someone else and this is why it’s important to see what works out for each one and develop a strategy from that.

I do believe that there have to be different approaches to reading. There should be books made that can engage those who have difficulties with them, and the earlier it starts the better. I’ve seen that there are typographers that have been developing typefaces (fonts) specially made for dyslexic people that make it easier for us to recognise each character, and I think this is wonderful. What in my opinion is a great approach for reading is to patiently give approachable stories to children and let them discover them little by little, encourage their own taste in reading in whichever genre they prefer, they’ll get where they need to get in their own time, but do help out. For example, I loved stories and when I read to my little brother I didn’t feel any pressure to get it right. Because he was three years younger than me, he enjoyed the stories as much as I did and we both loved the images that they had. Having this in mind get books that interact with kids, but also don’t forget that they are kids and need time to have fun, too much help can lead to rejection. I had great teachers that were caring and we took time out to play and cook so I enjoyed going to my extra classes. My mum celebrated my successes and I loved it, it made me feel encouraged, but she didn’t do this all my childhood which I think is great because I didn’t want to get great grades for a prize, I wanted to do it for myself. I now enjoy reading and want to work with books. I’m happy dyslexia didn’t ruin this for me but I’m also happy to be dyslexic because it helped me develop a different approach to reading and a passion for books.

Valeria De La Vega just finished her undergraduate degree in Communications with an Emphasis in Publishing and Multimedia at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. She is currently working at the Corona Foundation a non-profit organisation that works towards education in Colombia.

Announcing our new feature Interviews with Illustrators! We scour the web in search of awesome illustrators who have a knack with the brush (or pencil, or pen, or tablet..) and ask them all sorts of questions to gain an insight into their lives.

To start us off we want to introduce you to the talented illustrator Clayton McIntosh of Domestic Cowboy. Clayton moved from rural Australia to a bustling city in Japan and his retro-chic style immediately grabbed us! Here we talk to Clayton about his daily routines, how Japan informs his work and what his dream job would be. Scroll down to download free printables too!

Can you give us a bit of info about your background? Did you study, have you always wanted to illustrate? And where did the name Domestic Cowboy come from?

I grew up in Tamworth, a small rural city in Australia. I have always wanted to do something creative, but have had trouble sticking to one particular thing. As a high school student, I was under the influence of a lot of Homestar Runner (an online cartoon), so I decided to move to Brisbane to study animation.

While studying I started to draw simple comic strips and had them published in a couple of Australian street magazines. It was then that I came up with the name Domestic Cowboy. The idea of a cowboy doing the vacuuming or the dishes is hilarious to me.

After studying animation, I worked on two series of Pixel Pinkie – a children’s cartoon about a girl who has a digital genie in her mobile phone. Changing direction a bit, I went to university to study Social Science, and during that time I met and married a lovely lady, who was interested in living in Japan. So that’s where we live now, and I work as an assistant English teacher. All the while, I’ve continued drawing and creating.

What is a day in the life of Domestic Cowboy like? Tell us about your daily routine.

I get up at six every morning and try to do a bit of drawing or something before squeezing onto a crowded train and heading off to work at one of two schools – an elementary school (students aged 6-12) and a junior high school (ages 13-15). I do a lot of songs, games and fun activities with the younger kids. Junior high involves a lot more reading of texts, getting students to repeat after me, asking questions and making worksheets. I also spend a lot of time each day having simple conversations in English with students to help improve their language skills. It’s a fun job and the kids make me laugh.

After school I head home and often have a couple of hours to work on one of the million creative projects I’ve started – illustrating, writing, drawing, editing videos of my travels, and working on my website – librarywalls.com. I’m also studying Graphic Design online while planning and developing ideas for future projects.

Tell us about your move to Japan. What prompted it and how does living in Japan inform your illustrative work? How is it different from Australia?

I’ve always had an interest in Japan. My family hosted Japanese exchange students a few times when I was in high school, so I already had some Japanese connections, but I’d never seriously considered living overseas until I met my wife. She had studied Japanese at university and was keen on living here, which sounded good to me! We both got English teaching work, and I’m now in the fifth and final year of my contract.

Living in Japan I am constantly surrounded by the most incredible images. I get a lot of inspiration from children’s drawings at school. I’m also inspired by posters, advertisements, logos and other things I see around the place. There’s a mix of simple child-like designs, retro designs and nostalgia, and unexpected craziness and surrealism. It’s a magical place and I’m constantly taking photos of cool things that I just wouldn’t see in Australia. I think Australian designers are a little more restrained and you don’t see the same range of styles. I enjoy searching Japanese second-hand stores for old books, magazines, and unusual knick-knacks.

I can’t help but notice that you do a lot of educational work: Library Walls – the posters and bookmarks, the library games. What drives you, or what do you enjoy most, in your personal work?

I was never very good at school, and even now I struggle to sit and study for long periods of time, but the world is fascinating and exciting and it’s such a privilege to learn about it. I think it’s unfortunate that the delivery of education is often boring and dull. It should be fun and awe-inspiring. We should encourage children to explore and read and play and create, and I want to create resources that facilitate this. I enjoy fun things, silliness, and having a good time, and children like those things too.

What tools or techniques can you share about your process? Is it all hand done or is there a computer involved?

I always start with pen and paper to sketch some rough ideas. When the end goal is hand-drawn outlines, I neaten up the original sketch, trace it with a marker, scan it, and colour it in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. If I’m after cleaner, neater outlines (or no outlines) I take a photo of the rough drawing and upload that to my computer, then trace it with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator and move the elements around until I’m happy with how it looks, colouring as I go.

What social media platforms do you use, and do you feel social media is very important to your practice?

Social media is essential for people like me. These days I think it’s not necessarily the most talented people who are succeeding, but rather those who use social media to their advantage. I’m currently working to develop my online presence as I move towards working full-time in illustration and design in the future.

My favourite social media platform is Instagram as I think it’s the best way to share my artwork. I mostly use other social media platforms, like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, to keep up with family and friends, and to share video projects.

Who would be your ultimate client or collaborator?

My ideal project would be to work on my own Australian children’s TV program. Something involving puppets, animation, costumes, sets, stories, jokes and silliness – that would be wonderful! Australia had a Sesame Street-style kid’s show in the 90s called Lift Off. It was one of the best and wackiest shows I’ve ever seen. Most people remember the show because there was this creepy faceless doll that would occasionally move, as if it was possessed. It wasn’t actually supposed to be creepy – I think they were trying to make us use our imaginations or something. It also had all sorts of crazy scenarios, like some frill-necked lizards trying to document and understand humans, and an elevator with artificial intelligence that always misunderstood people. It was pretty fun. I realise it’s a bit of a fantasy, but I’d love to do a reboot of Lift Off for the Australian Children’s Television Foundation and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

More realistically, I would love to do something for Anorak Magazine, the “happy mag for kids.” It’s just such a great publication that mixes all the right kinds of fun, cool and nostalgia together.

Where can you see (or would like to see!) your illustration work heading?

I’ll finish up my teaching job in a few months and move back to Australia, where I’m going to do all I can to make a living from my illustration work. I’m currently working on a website that will provide screen-free activities for children, which I’m pretty excited about. I would also love to illustrate children’s picture books, puzzle books, textbooks and other resources, and continue making use of my animation background, working on things like motion graphics, lyric videos, and other online content.

Fave kids book?

My favourite kids book is The Eleventh Hour: A Curious Mystery by Graeme Base. It’s an illustrated mystery and Aussie classic. The illustrations are extremely detailed and you can always find something new hidden in the background. It’s a fascinating book!

We love teachers here at Curved House Kids. Was there a teacher you had who inspired you to do what you do?

Most of my teachers were supportive and encouraging. There was one English teacher, Mr. Young, who encouraged me in my writing, which had a big impact on me because I wasn’t very good at English. I think if he hadn’t encouraged me I would have always avoided anything to do with writing or books.

Principia Space Diary is back, giving thousands of schoolchildren the chance to become space experts as they learn about British European Space Agency astronaut Tim Peake’s historic space mission

Students from Wellesley School show off their Space Diaries at the Principia Schools Conference in Portsmouth last month.

Curved House Kids and author Lucy Hawking today launch the second Principia Space Diary programme, exactly one year after British ESA Astronaut Tim Peake blasted off on his Principia space mission. The Space Diary is a pioneering primary science scheme first created in 2015-16 as one of the UK Space Agency-funded education outreach projects supporting Tim Peake’s mission. It was an instant hit, attracting an estimated 60,000 children in 1500 schools – three times the number it originally hoped to recruit. With Tim now back safely on earth the Space Diary programme has been revised and updated to incorporate the incredible range of resources he generated while aboard the International Space Station.

British ESA Astronaut Tim Peake says “Engaging students in STEM has always been at the core of the Principia mission and the Space Diary has proven to be a really effective and empowering resource for doing that at primary school level. The Space Diary programme not only teaches children about space and science, but also crosses lots of other disciplines and incorporates books, digital and multimedia to encourage full participation. Now that I’m back safely on Earth, I look forward to seeing what this new corps of Space Apprentices do with their new Space Diaries.”

The Space Diary programme aims to empower children and engage them in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) learning by giving them the chance to create and personalise their very own book while they follow Tim’s mission. Students read, write, measure, count, research, plan, draw, code and decode, design and create, invent, imagine and more. They will also have the chance to access videos and photos of Tim’s activities including running the London Marathon aboard the International Space Station (ISS), a range of fascinating space experiments and Tim’s epic space walk (EVA).

“Tim Peake’s mission to space was an inspiration to so many and I am delighted we can offer a new set of primary school students the opportunity to draw upon his unique experiences and, in doing so, engage with STEM subjects at an early point in their education. We are so proud to work with Tim again and I hope schools will enjoy the new Principia Space Diary,” says author Lucy Hawking.

The new programme links to the curriculum for Primary Science, Maths, English, British Values, Computing (ICT), Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development (SMSC), Design and Technology (DT) and includes exclusive coding activities from Code Club and Raspberry Pi, integration with the Zappar augmented reality app and a wealth of online resources. All lesson plans are differentiated for P1-5 (KS1 and KS2) for teachers in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and extension activities provide extra challenges for those who need them.

“It is a massive testament to the skill of whoever designed the Space Diary that not one child had ‘lost’ theirs over the summer. Indeed they treasure them.” – Teresa Harris, Westbrook Hay School, Hertfordshire

Teachers and homeschool parents in the UK can pre-register from 15 December 2016 in order to access the entire online programme for free when the materials are released on 30th January 2017. Access includes downloadable versions of the entire Space Diary book and curriculum-linked activities, differentiated teaching notes, lesson plans, extension activities and exclusive videos with experts including British astronaut Helen Sharman, Professor Stephen Hawking, TV presenter Dallas Campbell and astronomer Dr Sheila Kanani.

Teachers also have the option to pre-order printed copies of the Space Diary to be delivered to their schools. Those who pre-order by 16th January 2017 will get £1 copies of the Space Diaries to ensure that all children have access to physical copies. Publisher Kristen Harrison says: “We hope the £1 Space Diaries will make it possible for every child to have a physical book. We are still hearing from teachers who participated last year whose students have treasured their diaries long after the programme finished.”

The Space Diary programme is created by publisher Kristen Harrison at Curved House Kids and children’s author Lucy Hawking, and includes expert input from computer scientist Professor Peter McOwan, the Vice-Principal for Public Engagement and Student Enterprise at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). It is funded by the UK Space Agency with additional support from the European Space Agency and Curved House Kids.

Tim Peake is heading off on his post-flight tour of the UK this month, visiting all four UK national capitals along with Leicester, Manchester, Salford and Glasgow. NASA astronaut and crewmate Tim Kopra will join Tim for the visits to Edinburgh, Belfast and London.

Tim will be giving presentations at each city, giving his first-hand account about life onboard the ISS and talking about the important science experiments he conducted during his mission.

As part of Tim’s Principia mission, the UK Space Agency has invested £3 million in the biggest education and outreach initiative ever undertaken for an ESA astronaut. Over a million young people have taken part including over 60,000 UK school children that participated in our Space Diary programme!

Curved House Kids are an energetic educational publisher with a focus on visual literacy and visual methodologies. We aim to make the art of communication achievable for all children, regardless of their skill level or circumstances. We take a democratic approach to learning and visual literacy is our secret weapon!

If this sounds like your kind of approach and you’re a practicing teacher in the UK, read on…

This year we have run the Principia Space Diary programme in partnership with Lucy Hawking and Queen Mary University of London. This programme has been funded by the UK Space Agency as one of nine educational outreach projects associated with ESA Astronaut Tim Peake’s mission to the ISS. The programme has been a huge success, reaching over 60,000 primary-aged students across the UK, and we are now working to develop new resources and programmes that can be accessed in the classroom.

We are expanding our resources library for primary and early secondary students (Key Stages 1-3) to include more free, downloadable learning materials for teachers and we are looking for experienced educators to review our work and help us build a library of first-class materials. These materials will teach a wide range of subjects using visual methods, and always intersecting with literacy learning and visual literacy.

As a passionate and creative teacher, your job will be to review materials that we produce and help us to align these to the curriculum, making them as effective as possible for busy teachers. You will also attend our annual brainstorm in which you tell us what you think we should be producing and what we’re doing right and wrong. We’ll also show you new ideas and technologies that might improve your own work.

This is a freelance role at an agreed hourly rate and we offer plenty of flexibility to fit in around busy teaching schedules. All work, bar the annual brainstorm, is done remotely and with plenty of notice. We expect it would be around 10 hours per year initially, plus one day for the brainstorm. Expenses will be paid for those who need to travel.

This call is currently open to all teachers in the UK and Ireland. We are keen to hear from KS1-3 teachers and welcome those with specialisms in particular areas. Our materials are not tied to the curriculum but they need to be complementary, so it is important that all applicants have an up-to-date knowledge of the curriculum.

Please click the link below to complete a very brief application form (it will only take 5 minutes) and we will contact you if we think you’d be a good fit. If you have any questions please feel free to email us at info@curvedhousekids.com.

Saturday 18th June is the big day when Tim Peake returns to Earth after six months on the International Space Station. Tim will return in a Soyuz capsule, along with crewmates Yuri Malenchenko and Tim Kopra. He’s due to land in Kazakhstan at 10.15am BST.

185

Days in Space

Watch the Soyuz undocking, re-entry and landing LIVE

Coverage starts at 4.00am BST on Saturday 18th June. Watch all the key events, from the time Tim enters to Soyuz capsule until he reaches Earth.

When to tune in (BST)

Your quick guide to re-entry timeline shown in British Summer Time (GMT+1)

04:00 Farewell and hatch closing. Crew members will then change into their Sokul spacesuits.
06:15 Soyuz capsule undocks from the ISS.
09:15 Deorbit burn to place Soyuz capsule on its re-entry trajectory.
09:49 Soyuz capsule separates from the orbital module and the heat shield peels away layer by layer.
10:00 Parachutes deploy.
10:15 Soft Landing Engines are fired and the Soyuz capsule lands.

Post-landing schedule (BST)

On landing, the recovery team will help Tim and his crewmates from the capsule. The astronauts will then undergo medical checks.

12:45 Crew will fly in helicopters to Karaganda airport.
14:15-14:45 Crew arrives at Karaganda airport for a welcome ceremony, followed by a press conference.
15:00-16:00 Tim Peake will fly to the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne.[/two_thirds_last]

Landing Parties

Celebrate Tim Peake’s return on Saturday June 18th at one of these exciting events!

Having your own Landing Party?

Good luck Tim, from Simonside School’s Space Diary Apprentices!

If you’re celebrating Tim Peake’s return we would love to see what you get up to! Send us your photos via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and use the #spacediary to make sure we see them! You’ll appear in our Mission Feed alongside all the awesome schools who have been doing their Space Diaries and Principia-related activities. You can also email us at info@curvedhousekids.com. Remember to get parental/guardian permission before you post photos of your students. If you can’t get permissions we’d love to see pictures of their books!

From all of us at Space Diary Headquarters, safe journey back to Earth, Tim Peake, and thanks for sharing your mission with us! #WelcomeHomeTim

Four hundred years ago Shakespeare died in Stratford-upon-Avon. He left behind a legacy of 37 plays, 154 sonnets and two epic narrative poems. Since then, people all around the world have embraced his work, through books, plays, films and creative projects. We even use his phrases in everyday language, feeling ‘faint hearted’ (Henry VI, Part I), ‘dead as a doornail’ (Henry VI, Part II), or ‘fancy free’ (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Shakespeare has given us wonderful insults, like ‘loathsome as a toad’ (Troilus and Cressida), and powerful descriptions of love, like ‘it is an ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempests, and is never shaken’ (Sonnet 116). In almost any situation, you could find a Shakespearean line to express how you feel.

Young people often find Shakespeare difficult to engage with – it’s a little like learning a foreign language! Seeing his plays live or as films can be a great starting point. But decoding Shakespeare’s sonnets is a bit harder, since they’re not often performed or produced. At Curved House Kids, we like to take a hands-on approach to making literature accessible, so we’ve developed a suite of ‘Write your own sonnet’ worksheets for students in Key Stage 3-4.

Our worksheets explain what a sonnet is and how it’s structured. They provide a simple template so that young poets can plan their rhyming scheme easily, without getting lost on the way. Each template includes a visual prompt to kickstart the imagination. These prompts will help unlock creativity, providing inspiration for the ‘story’ the sonnet will tell and the vocabulary poets might use to tell it. The prompts on each of our templates have different moods and styles, so your poets can choose one which appeals to them, or challenge themselves by writing several poems.

Download our worksheets by clicking in the image below and get your aspiring poets scribbling. Feel free to email us at info@curvedhousekids.com to share your work or use the hashtag #CHKshakes on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram!

If you want to explore Shakespeare’s works in other ways, check out Shakespeare400. This year-long programme coordinated by King’s College London includes performances, exhibitions and creative activities for all age groups. Visit the Sheakespeare400 website for programme details.

We wait with ‘bated breath’ (The Merchant of Venice) to read your sonnets!

Going to Bologna I didn’t know what to expect. I knew of course children’s books and illustrators but I never imagined the magnitude of the fair. Before this I had only been in my country’s (Colombia) biggest fair — the Bogotá Book Fair (Filbo) — and in Canada I went to the Toronto Book Fair, both wonderful but very different in size and purpose.

When Kristen and I arrived we immediately felt the joyful energy of this Italian city and were surprised to see how dog-friendly it is. As we walked through it, in less than an hour, we spotted 40 dogs. We knew that this was the place to be.

At the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, creative minds get to show their work and their enthusiasm for their craft. Walking through the stands, we viewed books that have been published all over the world. Where the fair began there were halls filled with the artworks of the selected illustrators, each of them with their own distinguishing style. Germany as the country of honour had a special hall exhibiting their illustrators. Work from this country demonstrated different techniques, from laser cut to fine drawings in black and white, or other illustrations filled with elements and a variety of colors.

The fair was huge and I had never been in one of this scale. It had stands for every country; sometimes publishers from a same nationality shared one but in most cases they had their own. As we explored the hallways of the Latin American countries, Chile caught our attention. They produce wonderfully crafted books with talented illustrators, as well as great ideas. The most wonderful surprise was meeting Argentinian publisher Diego Bianki from Pequeño editor,who publishes from the heart and has won prizes at the fair this year and last. Talking to him we saw the passion he has for his craft, which is clear in his books like Tree Book Tree. This is an amazing book that can be planted and a tree will grow out of it. To promote it, he used the motto: books come from trees, today a tree comes from a book.

There were also panels about a variety of topics. We had the chance to listen to some about enriched books and interactive book apps, and how this market has to work to make business model strategies get attention for what they are doing. Now publishers are also creating books with augmented reality. This is a new concept of books that isn’t being used in Colombia but it is a worthy tool that we should be pursuing and discovering. Its possibilities are endless.

The panels weren’t only about technology, and I was especially moved by one about refugees and children’s books. Panelists talked about how stories can help children understand why people leave their countries to live somewhere else and how this feels. It’s not just about understanding but about feeling and evoking emotion. This way real empathy is created and children can start building a better understanding with others. I left this panel with the feeling that these stories are needed all over the world and that they are helpful in all types of environments.

After the panels, we met Verena Pausder from Fox and Sheep, and illustrator Christoph Niemann who had great ideas and advice for Kristen.
I can’t end this blog without mentioning the lovely publishers from Ireland we met who adopted us into their group. They not only make amazing books and have creative initiatives, such as the book clinic, but also have such warm hearts and are very friendly. They truly made this trip to Bologna even better. Children’s Books Ireland, O’Brien Press and Little Island now have a special place in our hearts.

Valeria De La Vega is a final year student at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana where she is studying Communications with an emphasis in Publishing. She is interning at the Curved House Kids to learn about publishing children’s books, help translate the books to Spanish and to assist with the development of visual literacy resources.

I would love to boast that I was a prodigious childhood reader, ticking-off The Wind in the Willows aged 4. I was not that. I loved a good picture book, Katie Morag and the Tiresome Ted being one of the best. But when it came to attempting chapter books, I had no interest.

I now wonder whether it simply came down to taste. I won’t blow my own trumpet and claim I just wasn’t being challenged – it felt very challenging! – but I felt very keenly the effect of being educated using strict reading levels. The alternatives, provided by my very well meaning Mum, were painfully fun, zany, and garish which was even worse. I could count on my fingers the number of books I finished between the ages of 6 and 12, outside of school.

Written word purists might disapprove but audiobooks were what pulled me back in. The discovery of Stephen Fry’s rendition of Harry Potter and the fully dramatised (but unabridged!) production of Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights were completely magical. And suddenly I saw the point in reading again.

One of the most important things I’m discovering at The Curved House is the universal importance of visual literacy. It’s becoming clearer that children learn and develop in completely different ways. This has encouraged me to reconsider my critical and self conscious attitude about the way I got into reading, that there is something wrong, or easy, about audiobooks.

Audiobooks are an amazing format in themselves and they are also a potent gateway drug into the world of reading! For the uninitiated: I recommend anything Philip Pullman has ever recorded!

Rosie Cunningham is a graduate of MLitt Publishing Studies at the University of Stirling. During a condensed and highly productive four week work placement at The Curved House in Berlin, Rosie authored and project managed a Curved House Quick Guide, conducted extensive marketing and picture research, and assisted with editing and proofreading. She’s now returned to Edinburgh to work for Picture Hooks Illustration Agency to pursue her career in other areas of publishing. We wish her all the best!

British Science Week has arrived! To help you celebrate, we’ve put together a list of our favourite space-related experiments for your Space Apprentices. We can’t wait to see how you celebrate Science Week. Don’t forget to use #spacediary on Facebook and Twitter, so your photos appear on our Mission Feed.

Astronomy

This activity will need some adult supervision to assist with cutting and construction.

Chapter 3 of the Space Diary explores things Tim Peake might see from the ISS. He has a very special view of space! From Earth, we can’t see the things in our solar system quite as well, especially if we live in the city. Depending on where you live, you might be able to see the constellation called Ursa Major, also known as the ‘Big Dipper’, if the sky is very dark. This is where a galaxy called the Pinwheel Galaxy is.

But you can build your own Pinwheel Galaxy pinwheel, with the help of NASA. You’ll need a colour copy of the Pinwheel Galaxy printout (available here), a pipe cleaner, some wooden chopsticks or a popsicle stick, some scissors and a hole punch. For detailed instructions on how to make your Pinwheel Galaxy pinwheel, head here.

Engineering for space

This activity is more suitable for older children. It will need adult assistance and supervision, and requires some items which you may not have at home or school.

To get an astronaut safely into space, it takes a big team of clever engineers to design and build a spacecraft, and an even bigger team to co-ordinate blast-off. If you watch the launch of Tim’s Principia Mission, you can see the power needed to shoot a heavy spacecraft through Earth’s atmosphere and into outer space. Watch a clip of Tim’s launch below.

You can build and launch your own spacecraft, with the help of an adult. There might be a few things – like a film canister and antacid tablets – which you don’t have at home or school, so make sure you talk to an adult or teacher beforehand to help you plan your activity.

Details of how to build and launch your own Bubble-Powered Rocket ship are on the NASA website here.

Astrogeology

Younger children will need some assistance with this experiment. It can be messy, so make sure your Space Apprentices have an appropriate place to work!

Planetary geology is an important space science. Geologists examine the structures and surfaces of planets, their volcanoes, moons and the impact of craters on them. Geologists study samples collected during space missions, as well as meteorites that have fallen to Earth, to learn more about the planets in our solar system.

While there are lots of planets in our solar system with volcanoes, astrogeologists are particularly interested in those with active volcanoes, since this is something those planets have in common with Earth. The moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune all have active volcanoes.

You can make your own volcano with everyday items you have at home. Ask an adult to help you create your very own space volcano, by following the instructions here.

Meteorology

Adult supervision is important for this experiment, because it uses boiling water.

Space Apprentices who have researched our solar system will know that the weather on other planets is very different to the weather on Earth. Some planets have extreme solar winds; others have dust storms and hurricanes. Some planets – like Venus – have a thick layer of cloud, which traps heat and creates a greenhouse effect.

You can make your own cloud in a jar with just a few household items. You will need to use hot water in this activity, so it’s important that an adult helps you. By making your own cloud, you can witness firsthand what happens to water as it heats and cools. Next time you look up and the sky and see dark grey rain clouds or fluffy white ones, you’ll be able to tell your friends what’s going on above your head!

Biology

Younger children will need some help with this experiment, and all young scientists will need a space where they can make some mess with paint and soil.

Biologists are essential when it comes to space research. Not only do they look at what happens to the human body in space, they also study what happens to plants. This is important because scientists are investigating growing food in space.

There are lots of different challenges associated with growing food in space, because of the lack of soil, direct light, oxygen and gravity. You can explore what happens to plants when their light source is restricted, using a fun phototropism experiment. Plan ahead, because you need to paint some cardboard and wait for it to dry before you can go to the next step. You might like to build your experiment over a few days.

We did watch Tim’s rocket launch and felt for him flying out into space. Everyone was glad he made it ok.

While waiting for the seeds to be sent to us, we got busy with our space apprenticeship through the Curved House Kids Space Diaries. We have explored how tall we would grow in space, how it would feel to float in microgravity and we have learnt to say ‘hello’ in four different languages! It was fun creating our own spacesuit, especially as most of us made sure there was a ‘nappy’ involved! Breaking the code was a tricky one but our helpful grown-ups gave us some clues, so we could decode Mrs Peake’s message finally.

It has been exciting learning about the planets and their special features. It seems like a good idea to take an umbrella to Neptune – if we ever get there! We have also created our own ISS and Soyuz rockets and imagined ourselves flying out into space.

Now that Scott Kelly has brought the rocket seeds back to Earth, preparations have begun at the gardening club for the great experiment. Halfway through the Space Diary, we are really looking forward to learning more about space and the life of an astronaut. Our space apprenticeship has been fun so far!

Image by NASA. (Artists impression of an International Space Station garden)

Growing plants in space is an important area of research – especially as we need to explore how we might be able to grow food on planets such as Mars.

Image by NASA.

At the moment, astronauts eat food sent from Earth in packages like in this picture. If we want to spend more time in space, however, it will be much nicer to grow our own food!

A team of European Space Agency (ESA) scientists has created a list of the top 10 plants to grow in space.

Soybean

Soybeans are amazingly rich in protein and oil, and can be made into products such as soy sauce, while the immature pods are eaten as edamame. Dried soya can be found in many other foods and drinks, as well as essential products from paper to adhesives. After processing, the oil from the seeds can also be used as a diesel fuel – what a useful plant to grow in space!

Potato

Humble they may be, but few crops produce as much food per square metre. Although mostly carbohydrate, they contain high-quality protein and useful amounts of vitamin C. Older varieties are often robust, water-efficient and high yielding, if not so easy on the eye.

Rice

Rice feeds nearly half of humanity, and it would be unthinkable to leave this behind. Paddy rice (grown in water-filled paddy fields) might be tricky in space, so perhaps the much less important dry land rice (grown in dry soils) would be the interplanetary choice.

Soft white wheat

Used to make many of the staples of our diet, from bread and pasta to couscous.

Tomato

Tomatoes are a must. Imagine life without this tasty, vitamin rich succulent fruit. It can be eaten raw or used in cooking.

Spinach

Spinach is quick-growing, can be eaten raw or rapidly cooked, and its sharp flavour would be especially welcome on long voyages. Astronauts would be wise not to gorge, however, as the oxalic acid it contains can limit dietary uptake of calcium.

Lettuce

Quick and easy to grow, lettuce produces limited waste and is refreshing, an important point for travellers confined to their spacecraft for long periods. Lettuce was originally grown for its oil rich seeds and these too might be valuable in space.

In August 2015, a few months before Tim Peake’s mission, Scott Kelly and the other astronauts aboard the ISS ate the very first lettuce grown in space. The red romaine lettuce was grown in the ISS’s Veggie plant growth system. After harvesting the lettuce and tasting it, the astronauts dressing it with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. You can watch them enjoying it here.

Beetroot

Beetroot is a sweet, tasty and nutritious root crop, and its leaves make a filling, robust spinach-like vegetable. In theory, sugar beet would be a heavier yielding crop, but it is of little use in space since there are no processing factories.

Onion

Lengthy missions would be dull indeed without these sweet, nutritious, flavour-enhancing vegetables. They also have an analeptic (stimulating) effect on the central nervous system, helping to keep astronauts alert. Onions like a hotter, sunnier climate, so varieties that perform well in Britain should grow anywhere.

Spirulina

Not very appetising but in the worst-case scenario, space explorers would be able to survive on this green micro-alga. Harvested from the ocean, it is protein rich and efficient at producing oxygen from carbon dioxide breathed out by the crew.

Dream Giver by Morgan (Y6) at Simonside School

An eerie full moon in an abandoned town peered across the sky. The ebony, moonlit sky was scattered with numerous stars that periodically blinked. They shone over the roof tops of the town which was surrounded with a deafening silence. Cricket chirps were the only noise that filled the air. Nestled in the heart of the town stood an ancient stone church which towered proudly over the other buildings. As the wind blew in the town where there was no-one to be seen, washing clung to the line for several more hours; a sign that people had fled.

In the pitch black neighbourhood only one little light infiltrated the darkness from one lonely window…

Suddenly, in one swift motion a moth-like creature descended upon 2655 Kensington Avenue. Hesitantly, the intriguing creature grasped the edge of the shutters with his long, bony fingers. As he took a step forward he pushed the door ajar.

Noticing the sleeping children he quietly consulted with his notebook which he kept in his back pocket. As he checked the address he was relieved to know he had reached his destination.

The deprived young children were snoring while sleeping contently, despite the absence of their parents. As the little orphanage boy slept peacefully in his checkered bed, the creature perched upon the ledge. He entered the old, wooden building peering around the children that surrounded the room.

The passage light was shining through their open, mahogany door. It was decided that the
children were scared of the dark and needed to feel safe, so this was the best action.

Before very long, the visitor fluttered down and lay his hessian bag on a child’s bed. His eyes widened as he peered inside, with the light shining on his face. As he made his way to the first six-year-old child, he took out a glimmering egg an cracked it open.

Inside every egg was a dream that belongs to each and every child. It was quite unclear exactly as to what or who he was. He poured a part of the magical insides onto a little pair of ballet shoes which lay at the bottom of a deprived young girl’s bed. With one splash of magic the shoes turned bright pink and a little dancer started dancing across her bed. She smiled contently as she lay there in peace; a feeling that influenced her dream.

As he moved on a small boy stirred and colourful explosion set off. An egg had crashed…

Beams of light filled the room as swirls of stars surrounded the astronaut. As the swirls increased in speed the young space cadet was swallowed by a hungry vortex.

Lying in a ball on the dusty earth, the boy awoke and examined his new surroundings. The rainforest! Butterflies gathered and fluttered sound his head as a little one floated and silently landed on his finger. Suddenly he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. A little rock had been nudged. Carefully he placed it into the right position.

The light climbed and ominous clouds gathered as the darkness descended. As time went on he walked further into the forest. Remnants of an Aztec tribe were littered around. An old skeleton was perched against a rock; an indication that there had been no life for some time.

A piercing pair of narrow slithers of lime green light penetrated the darkness. Suddenly a ferocious growl thundered from within a cave which ricocheted from every surface. Panicking, the boy froze instantly to the spot.

Hesitantly he backed away before turning to run. He ran and he ran and he ran. Faster, harder, quicker. The dust clouds travelled behind him. The beast continued to stalk him. His fate was sealed; he was bound to die.

All of a sudden bombing eggs started to gather around the beast. Gnarly roots started wrapping around eventually turned it into a trap.

With his arms covering his face sweat dripped down his brow. He was safe. With a jolt he awoke from his dream. A firefly noise was heard as it passed. He looked at the open window with wide eyes … What was it?

This gripping tale was written by Morgan from Simonside Primary School and we absolutely had to post it because we were enthralled from the first sentence! Thank you to Miss Lisa Pegman and Morgan for sharing this excellent piece of creative writing with us. Keep up the good work!